Tucker Carlson: ICE Raids, LA Riots, Strong Economic Data, Politicized Fed, War with Iran?

The panel agreed on tougher border enforcement but split sharply on what follows: Tucker Carlson favored full legal compliance and self-deportation, while David Sacks backed starting with violent criminals and gang members. Chamath Palihapitiya prioritized legal visa applicants; Jason Calacanis favored citizenship for long-settled workers plus recruiting one to two million high-skill immigrants annually.

Carlson said his break with Republican foreign-policy orthodoxy began after he went to Iraq in December 2003 to see where a friend had been killed. He said the trip convinced him the United States was acting like a colonial power while refusing to admit it had an empire.

Growth indicators improved while federal finances remained strained: CPI was 2.4%, Atlanta Fed projected 3.8% Q2 growth, and May’s deficit still reached $316 billion with $90 billion in interest. Palihapitiya projected tariffs and a 100-basis-point rate cut could together improve the annual fiscal picture by about $600 billion.

The clearest disagreement over the Fed was about motive: Palihapitiya and Carlson portrayed Jerome Powell as politically constrained. Sacks offered another explanation—Powell may fear repeating Arthur Burns—while still arguing Powell acted politically in 2021 before Biden renominated him, then tightened after confirmation.

Carlson opposed the “big, beautiful bill” mainly because its size makes legislation unreadable, staff-driven and difficult for voters or lawmakers to understand. Sacks backed it pragmatically as the reconciliation vehicle for Trump’s tax, border, tips, energy and missile-defense promises, arguing the larger deficit fight should wait until October 1.

Palihapitiya said he spent hours with Elon Musk at Tesla that week and sat in on meetings with the Dojo and Optimus teams, then concluded Musk and Trump were likely to find common ground. Calacanis said he skipped the prior week’s podcast to avoid having comments about his longtime friend Musk weaponized.

Carlson asserted there was no U.S. intelligence showing Iran was assembling a nuclear weapon or only months from doing so, and warned against striking before Steve Witkoff’s scheduled Oman talks. Palihapitiya likewise favored negotiations, warning that war could push oil toward $100–$112 a barrel and damage inflation and global growth.

On the Los Angeles unrest, Sacks argued ICE had begun by serving criminal warrants, while Calacanis supported National Guard deployment if local police were overwhelmed. Their narrower disagreement was over enforcement itself: all condemned attacks on police, but differed over whether ICE was conducting targeted arrests or broader workplace roundups.